Happy Thanksgiving!

Bargain hunters helped home sales rise 1.9 percent across the Coachella Valley in October compared to the same month a year ago, even as sales declined through the rest of the inland region.

About 735 homes sold in the valley last month, San Diego-based real estate information provider DataQuick reported.

Sales were particularly brisk in Indio, Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage.
Riverside County, meanwhile, saw 3,026 homes sell, a 7.3 percent drop from a year ago. About 2,300 homes sold — a 1.8 percent decline — in San Bernardino County.
About 54 percent of single-family home purchases and 45 percent of condo transactions in the valley were bank-owned or other distressed properties — down 6 percent from October 2010 — the California Desert Association of Realtors reported.
Greg Berkemer, executive vice president of the group, said as distressed properties continue to comprise a smaller share of sales, it's a sign the market is slowly stabilizing.

Just over half — 52.5 percent — of sales in Southern California were distressed properties, DataQuick reported. Nearly one out of three homes in the Southland that resold in October was a foreclosure, while about one in five was a short sale.
As many buyers sought bargain prices, Coachella Valley's median price — half sold for more, half for less — fell 8.5 percent to $166,000, DataQuick reported.
CDAR, which compiles home sales figures somewhat differently, reported the valley's median price at $179,975 in October, with the average sales price at $281,360.
The median price in Riverside County was $187,000 last month, down 5.6 percent from October 2010. The median price in San Bernardino County was $150,000, the same as August and September, and the same as a year ago.

The inland region's median sales price hit its lowest level since January, which analysts said was due in part to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration lowering loan limits as of Oct. 1 for government-backed mortgages.

Mike Perrault
The Desert Sun

During the past few weeks the most asked questions was "What is a PCOR?"

Herewith is an explanation:
In every purchase/sale of Real Estate, a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (PCOR) must be filed. The PCOR must be filed for other types of transfers as well, but in this blog we will consider only purchase/sale transactions. After opening escrow, a buyer can expect to find the PCOR in the opening document package.

What is the PCOR?

Ordinarily, at the time of transfer when sales of property are recorded via the grant deed with the county recorder, the grantee (buyer) fills out and files a PCOR. It is a two-page questionnaire requesting information on the property, principals involved in the transfer, type of transfer, purchase price, and terms of sale.

The PCOR normally satisfies the change of ownership reporting requirements unless the form is returned incomplete. The PCOR is to be completed, signed and certified by the buyer, as the buyer is signing the document under penalty of perjury. It is then filed in the county recorder’s office for the county where the property is located. The county assessor may also request other information about a deed or other matters related to the transfer after reviewing the PCOR. The PCOR is confidential and is not available for public inspection.

What is the purpose of the PCOR?

Each county assessor’s office reviews all recorded deeds for that county to determine which properties require reappraisal under the law. Once the county assessor has determined that a change of ownership has occurred, Proposition 13 requires the county assessor to reassess the property to its fair market value as of the date of ownership change. The PCOR is important to this process and it must be filed at the time of recording, otherwise an additional $20 recording fee will be assessed.

If the PCOR is not filed at the time of recording, the county assessor will send a Change of Ownership Statement (COS) to the transferee (buyer). If the COS is not filed by the transferee within 45 days of the county assessor’s request, then penalties can ultimately range from $100 to $2,500.

Understanding how to complete the PCOR

The section at the top of the first page of the document is used to identify the buyer (transferee) and seller (transferor), and the property being transferred. The information may be typed in the areas provided. Enter this information as it appears correctly on the grant deed. Be sure to enter the 10-digit Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN), which can be found in the title report provided by the escrow officer, and is also usually also found on the buyer’s purchase contract for the property. Also enter the mailing address to which property tax notices are to be sent.

Part I of the PCOR is used to provide transfer information, and it can be confusing. The assessor uses the information in this section to determine if the transfer may be excluded from reassessment. If a buyer has questions about Part I, the county assessor’s office can be contacted for assistance, or the buyer’s real estate agent or escrow officer may be consulted. Parts II, III, and IV of the document will help the county assessor better understand the nature of the transfer and the purchase price.

Finally, the buyer’s name must be printed at the end of the form, and the buyer must sign it to certify that the information provided is true and correct.

Some of our recent sales have been in Sun City Shadow Hills, which in my opinion, offer the best value for money as do homes in La Quinta and Palm Springs followed by Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and Indian Wells.

THERE ARE SOME GREAT BUYS AVAILABLE SO CALL OR EMAIL FOR A LIST.

By CV Escrow

Interest rates are at historic lows: less than 4.5% on a 30-year-fixed and below 4% on 15-year fixed rate loans. And prices are low, too - at or near bottom in most of the country. Together, these items mean that affordability is near an all-time high.

It's like a massive, pre-holiday sale on real estate!

Nevertheless, home sales are only "gradually" creeping up, according to the most recent data published by the National Association of Realtors. And sellers are clearly still feeling price pressures; on Trulia's October price reduction report, an all-time high 27% of American homes listed for sale had had their price cut at least one time!

So, what's stopping buyers from running out to grab up all these affordable homes at affordable rates? And what can savvy sellers (and listing agents!) do to offset these obstacles?

1. (Perceived) difficulties in qualifying for a mortgage. Mortgage guidelines have tightened up significantly over the last few years, now requiring good (but not perfect) credit, documented income, a proven stable job history and cash for down payment and closing costs. Some buyers find it difficult to scrape the down payment money up; others find that they can qualify, but not for a large enough mortgage to buy any home worth owning (banks have tightened up debt-to-income ratios, too). Many would-be buyers don't even consider themselves serious prospects, disqualifying themselves in their own heads because they heard somewhere that a 20 percent down payment is necessary - in actuality, many buyers can qualify for a 3.5 percent down, FHA loan. Between actual difficulties qualifying and perceived difficulties that don't actually exist, lots of buyers are not biting because of loan "issues."

Seller Solution: Ask your agent to have a mortgage broker colleague prepare flyers reflecting various loan options, to give open house attendees a reality check about what it would actually take - including down payment, closing costs and monthly payment - to buy your home. Also, consider offering closing cost credits or being willing to chip in for lender-required repairs to empower buyers who are struggling with mortgage qualifying to close the deal.

2. Fear of buying a foreclosure. The ongoing robo-signing/foreclosure fraud scandal and the resulting foreclosure freeze is beginning to play a role. If you haven't heard, two of America's largest mortgage servicers have frozen foreclosures and resales of foreclosed homes in 23 states, and Bank of America, the largest lender in the land, has frozen them in all 50 states, all because sweeping fraud and improprieties have been revealed in the way the banks are processing foreclosure documentation.

More and more, buyers are fearful that if they buy a foreclosed home, that sale could be reversed down the road if it comes out that the banks wrongfully foreclosed on the former owner. And that could be stopping buyers from, well, buying foreclosed homes.

Seller Solution: If your home is not a short sale, all of your home's marketing materials should be trumpeting this fact - especially if most of your home's competition (e.g., similar homes in the area and in the same price range) are bank-owned homes and short sales. Seeing 'Not an REO/Not a Short Sale' on a listing or flyer is quite magnetic to buyers right now.

3. Waiting for the shadow inventory to come out. The phrase 'shadow inventory' refers to the homes that have been (or will soon be) foreclosed on by the banks, which are not yet on the market; some estimate this inventory to be as high as 7 million homes! Many buyers who are actively house hunting -- and who are disappointed with the homes that are available -- are fearful of pulling the trigger because they believe the banks are going to start releasing their 'shadow inventory' soon, and that those homes will be better than what's out there on the market right now.

Seller Solution: Work with your agent to strategically stage your home and even do basic, inexpensive repairs, to make it stand out against the competition as a desirable property. Also, ensure that your pricing is in line - or even slightly below - similar homes on the market right now, to ensure that your home seems like a very strong value for the price.

4. Waiting for the bottom. Given the trajectory of home prices over the past couple of years, there's a large contingent of buyers who are afraid that after they buy, home price will continue to fall and they will lose their hard-earned investment in the home. These are folks who are still waiting for the bottom (although by some accounts, including that of the Case-Shiller Price Index, the bottom is here or has already passed, in many cities).

Human nature is always to wait too long for the bottom, miss it, and then end up wishing we had bought sooner. The behavioral economics theory of myopic loss aversion explains this phenomenon as being due to the fact that the pain of losing money generates a greater psychological fear and avoidance than the prospect of gaining the same amount of money. Buyers can set themselves up to gain over time, even if they lose equity in the very near term, by making smart decisions about the home they buy and how much they pay for it, and planning to stay in their home for a longer term than previous generations of buyers did.

Seller Solution: This is a difficult one to counter, because it's really more about the would-be buyer's interpretation of the market than about their reaction to your home. If you live in a market that has had recent increases in home values, include that data in your marketing - make sure buyers are aware that they may already have missed the very bottom, and create a sense of urgency to buy your home before prices go up even more.

5. Unemployment/underemployment. Take California, for instance. The national unemployment rate is 9.6%; California's is a whopping 12.8%. But right around the same number of Californians are underemployed, meaning they work part-time, but want full-time work. That's right, a quarter of Californians are unemployed or underemployed, and -- right again! - none of those people are buying homes. On top of that, many people who do have jobs lack job security, the confidence of believing they'll be able to keep their jobs in the future. Interest rates could be zero, and people will not buy homes as long as they have no jobs or job security.

Seller Solution: If there are major employers in town that are within an easy commute of your home, both you and your agent should consider marketing it directly to employees there. Share your home's listing with Facebook friends who work there or even send an email out to your own contacts, if you work there yourself! Major companies' Human Resources Departments might help you get the word out to their employees - especially if you offer some incentive to an employee who buys your home, like a year's worth of subway passes. If you have universities nearby, there are likely online bulletin boards that offer housing options directly to relocating professors and employees.

6. Need to keep options open. Because home values are so volatile, currently, there's no guarantee that you can resell today's new home tomorrow without taking a loss. If we've learned anything from this crisis, we all know that it just doesn't pencil, financially, to buy a home on today's market unless you plan to own the home for at least 7 years (give or take a year or so, depending on how your market has fared in the housing recession).

Many Americans don't want to be tied to one location, given the changes in the job market, because they simply don't want to be stuck in one place, geographically speaking. They want to be free to meet someone via online dating and move if the match sticks. They want the freedom to move across the country or even to the next city or state for a job, if that's the direction their career takes them. The more mobile the person, the less likely they are to buy a home.

Seller Solution: Price your home well - if it's been lagging on the market, make sure you get aggressive and cut the price below a common buyer search cut-off price point (see this post for more details: Sellers: 5 Signs It’s Time to Cut the List Price of Your Home). Even buyers who are seriously in the market, get nervous about buying a home when it seems a bit overpriced, because they fear the price will drop some more in the coming months and years, extending the period of time before they can sell it at a break even or (hope beyond hope) a profit! Don't let overpricing cause you to lose buyers who otherwise would have bitten the bullet, pulled the trigger and hopped off the fence in order to buy your home.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson

The growing number of freezes on home foreclosures is likely to shake up the struggling U.S. housing market. Experts say home prices could rise in the short term, but the eventual glut of foreclosure sales could hurt the market in the long run.

The move by some major lenders such as Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Ally Financial to put some of their foreclosures on hold could help temporarily lift prices, by removing the inventory of bargain-basement foreclosed properties from the market.
"Home prices are likely to be firmer than otherwise would be the case in the fourth quarter and into early next year," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
While that's good news for the economy, the effects might be short lived. That's because the foreclosure freezes are also likely to delay sales of the huge inventory of foreclosed properties, which would hinder a long-term recovery in prices.
"It'll probably push out the distressed sales into 2011 and 2012," said Zandi.

Questions about the validity of some of the lenders' affidavits in foreclosure cases has caused the banks to announce moratoriums over the last two weeks.

Friday, Bank of America expanded its freeze on home foreclosures to all 50 states from the 23 states where foreclosures must be approved by the courts. Some of the states that were added are among those with the highest rates of foreclosure sales, including California, Nevada and Arizona.

If freezes spread to other home lenders, or if other lenders follow Bank of America and expand their moratoriums, it could greatly increase the impact on the market.
Freezing foreclosures? What does that mean?

Distressed sales through foreclosures or short sales http://www.luxurydeserthomes.com/ now make up nearly a third of the residential real estate market, according to an estimate from home sales research firm RealtyTrac, which estimates they are depressing home prices by about 26%.

Any short-term rise in overall home sales is likely to be misleading, said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac senior vice president, as the numbers might be skewed by the loss of rock-bottom foreclosure sale prices from the market.

"You might get a false positive read on fourth quarter home prices because you'll be eliminating a lot of sales at the bottom of the market," he said. "There are so many factors distorting the market, it's tough to get an accurate read."

He thinks the freezes could cause lenders to move toward more short sales, in which the bank agrees to a sale for less than the balance of the mortgage. That could lead to a more substantial impact on market prices.

"It might stimulate a little more short sale activity, as lenders and servicers look for ways to more efficiently move the property outside the foreclosure," said Sharga. "Typically your discount on short sales is only 15%, compared to 35% for a [foreclosure sale]." http://www.realestateforsaleinpalmsprings.com/

Just the level of uncertainty about the halt in foreclosures has the potential to depress home sales as buyers wait to see what foreclosed homes might be coming on the market in the future.

A prolonged delay in foreclosures could also hurt long-term prices by driving investors who had been returning to the real estate market to invest elsewhere.
"Some of the money that is waiting to go to [into foreclosure sales] might evaporate and those sales could be lost," said Zandi. http://www.financeweb.com/

And the delays could further depress the value of all homes in areas with high numbers of foreclosures by keeping the houses vacant longer and delaying a correction in the market.

"I would think anything that delays the disposition of these properties has the potential to further depreciate surrounding home value," said Sharga


By Chris Isidore